Chase Contest For ME/CFS Non-profits Has Begun

September 7, 2012

Posted by Cort Johnson

Opportunity Knocks!

The Chase Giving Contest is back and with it the opportunity to get cash-starved ME/CFS non-profits some real cash. All it takes is your vote and spreading the word for the next two weeks (Sept 6-19th). This, in the world of non-profits is a remarkably easy (if nerve-wracking) way to make money…

Over the past two years Phoenix Rising has played a key role in getting Chase to pump over $170,000 into ME/CFS non-profits coffers and now we and eight other organizations are in the contest. The Top 200 vote getters this year will win from 10K to 250K.

Where We Are Now - Because you only have two votes we suggest that you focus them on organizations with a good chance of winning. In this blog we’re going to focus on the top two vote-getters; Phoenix Rising and the Neuro Immune Disease Alliance or NIDA, an ME/CFS research funder. On the fourth day of the two week contest here are the votes for the two orgs with a strong chance of winning money..

Neuro Immune Disease Alliance at 68th place – winning 20K

Phoenix Rising An NEID Corporation at 96th place – winning 20K

To Vote on Facebook

NOTE: The Chase FB site is overloaded at times, so if it behaves weirdly, please try again later!

If you do not have a Facebook Account - go to www.facebook.com and quickly create a page. Since you must ‘like’ Community Chase Giving first in order to vote go to Community Chase’s Facebook pagehttp://www.facebook.com. Each person has two votes (plus a possible bonus vote, see below).

(Or type NEID in the box “Search Charities”.) “Phoenix Rising, an NEID corporation” will appear. Click “Vote”.If it asks you to “Allow” or “Allow App”, click Yes. Then click the Like and Send buttons to spread the word about Phoenix Rising and the contest.

(Or type NIDA in the box “”Search charities”.) “Neuro Immune Disease Alliance” will appear. Click “Vote”. At the question “Allow” or “Allow App”, click Yes. Then click the Like and Send buttons to spread the word about Phoenix Rising and the contest.

Chase Bank and Facebook Users- can vote for the same organization twice…If you get a Bonus vote you can vote for an organization a third time.

The Bonus Vote

A Bonus Vote is an extra vote you can win and then use to vote for any organization you wish. In the grand tradition of Chase Giving the bonus vote is a complicated but getting Bonus votes could make a big difference…We’re going to explain as simply as possible how to get an extra vote. If it’s too much – forget about the Bonus vote strategy and just vote!

To Get a Bonus Vote

Sharing Content - To get a bonus vote Chase wants you to share an organization you like with a friend and then have them vote for that organization.

the person voting for the organization must click on your link and then vote without going to any other pages..

you only get one Bonus Vote..

How to Share An Organization

a) Go to Phoenix Rising’s page at http://fb.chasegiving.com/charity/view/ein/27-3313361 and then click the like button to put the organization on your Timeline. Then ask one of your Facebook Friends to click on it and vote…You’ll then get a Bonus you can use to vote for Phoenix Rising or another organization, including ones you already voted for.

b) For Family and Friends - Clicking on the ‘Send’ button is a great way to get a string going with family and friends. Click the Send button will send the organization’s profile to a person’s Facebook page, their email address or to their twitter account.

For instance, I’m asking my brother, Cass, to vote for Phoenix Risng An NEID Organization and NIDA. I will get a bonus vote when my brother votes. He will ask his partner to vote for the two organizations; once his partner has done that Cass will get a vote. Then his partner will send a message to my sister, who will send the message to her husband to his son etc. As long as the string continues everyone gets 3 instead of 2 votes.

We’ve created a Bonus Vote Exchange on Phoenix Rising to try and facilitate this process. Check it out here… For more information on how to vote check out this Forum thread or contact me at Cort@phoenixrising.me

Phoenix Rising’s Winnings

Phoenix Rising has several projects it could spend the winnings on. Check some of them our here:

Rate a Practitioner program - to help ME/CFS patients save time, money and improve their health by finding good doctors and avoiding bad ones

Community Rising program - to break up the isolation and connect people in their local communities, provide avenues for assistance, reviews of local clinics and physicians, etc.

Making the Forums More Accessible to the Visually Impaired - upgrading the Forums so that as many as possible can participate.

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Can I vote for the same organization twice? I have voted for NIDA and Phoenix Rising (searched for NEID) and now have one bonus vote. Can I vote for PR again or must I choose a third org? (In that case, which is in third place of the ME/CFS orgs?)

I searched for other CFS organizations, and there I still have the Vote button, nice and green. And my bonus vote is in, I can see it up in the right hand upper corner. Are there written rules somewhere saying you CAN for sure vote twice for the same org?

The bonus vote earned by the sharing Facebook user can only be cast once he/she has cast his/her two (2) Standard Facebook Votes. The bonus vote may be cast for any Eligible Nominated Charity, including an Eligible Nominated Charity for which the sharing Facebook user has already cast a Standard Facebook Vote.

I've alerted them to the fact that you can't use your bonus vote for us right now. Thanks for waiting

A small correction to Neuroimmune Disease Alliance (NIDA). It's listed as two words Neuro Immune for searching purposes. I've voted for them and PR and am waiting for my bonus vote for PR from sending the link to my boyfriend, but it's not showing up yet.

Will wait patiently! And will alert all my friends and ask them to vote.

Perhaps we should wait on alerting friends until we actually figure out how to vote and nail down a set of detailed step-by-step instructions that people can follow? If we keep throwing away bonus votes at the rate we are right now (because we don't know what we are doing) we might as well quit right now.

Cort, You did a great job simplifying this but there are a couple problems. The main one comes from the fact that many people will not read the whole article. They read part, think they have all the info they need and therefore don't need to bother reading the rest (wrong!!) and make mistakes …

I have a Facebook Account And Have Voted Before - go to the URL’s below and vote!

Same problem with these 2 as above. No bonus votes. Our voter base is too small to compete with the large organizations if we do not utilize the bonus votes. They are not "bonuses". They are essential!

always vote from someones Timeline or Facebook mail or email.

someone who has not already been given a bonus vote!!! we are losing votes already, and it will get worse as time goes on, because people are just clicking on "someones" timeline, not realizing that one has been used already… another vote lost

The rest of the instructions look really good! If you could just make a few minor changes to address those issues, I think it would really help.

Below is the message I've sent out to my FB friends. Maybe someone would like to copy/adjust it and use it. I tried to make the instructions as simple as possible. And I agree with Neilk: let's not worry too much about the bonus votes, every friend we can get to vote equals two votes, so let's just spread the word and get as many people involved as we can! (The direct links don't seem to work too well, so I involved the Search engine in my message.) /Anne

Friends, please help us raise money for ME/CFS research by voting in the Chase Community Giving Contest. Previous Chase contests have resulted in $170.000 to ME/CFS research – this time we can win some more! Help us by voting – it only takes a few minutes.

Vote before Sept 19. Each person has two votes (plus a possible bonus vote, see below). Here’s how:

A small correction to Neuroimmune Disease Alliance (NIDA). It's listed as two words Neuro Immune for searching purposes. I've voted for them and PR and am waiting for my bonus vote for PR from sending the link to my boyfriend, but it's not showing up yet.

NEW VERSION of the message with direct links to the two organizations – much easier! /Anne

Friends, please help us raise money for ME/CFS research by voting in the Chase Community Giving Contest. Previous Chase contests have resulted in $170,000 to ME/CFS research – this time we can win some more! Help us by voting – it only takes a few minutes.

Vote before Sept 19. Each person has two votes (plus a possible bonus vote, see below). Here’s how:

NOTE: The Chase FB site is overloaded at times, so if it behaves weirdly, please try again later!

I am trying to follow all these different articles and discussions here and on FB. I just posted that I can give someone a bonus vote by going to their link to vote. I posted it in the bonus-vote exchange here: http://phoenixrising.me/archives/13…-merger-bridge-2/comment-page-1#comment-42226
In other words, I still haven't voted, and wanted a partner to buddy up with, or at least to access through the page of someone who hasn't voted. Then I can send a link to my non-ME/CFS FB friends.

NIDA (Neuro-immune Disease Alliance) is in the top 100 with over 200 votes, Phoenix Rising is just out of the top 200 with 118 votes – we were actually in the bottom 400's yesterday (I counted wrong), Rocky Mountain has 25, New Jersey has 13, OFFER has 8 votes, who am I missing….

Both Phoenix Rising and NIDA moved up quite a bit yesterday – a good sign. I am going to send out newsletters today and hopefully we'll climb more…

NIDA (Neuro-immune Disease Alliance) is in the top 100 with over 200 votes, Phoenix Rising is just out of the top 200 with 118 votes – we were actually in the bottom 400's yesterday (I counted wrong), Rocky Mountain has 25, New Jersey has 13, OFFER has 8 votes, who am I missing….

Both Phoenix Rising and NIDA moved up quite a bit yesterday – a good sign. I am going to send out newsletters today and hopefully we'll climb more…

Glad we are moving up. Unfortunately though, I must correct you Cort. It is not the top 200. It is the top 196 that get money. I was going over that last night.

Just had a thought. If members post in their 'status updates' something about Chase with a link, this will show on the main forum page — guests and members — on the menu to the right (user status updates) which will add more visibility for the contest.

Just had a thought. If members post in their 'status updates' something about Chase with a link, this will show on the main forum page — guests and members — on the menu to the right (user status updates) which will add more visibility for the contest.

Kina

Sorry Kina, I'm lost. Are you talking about Facebook or PR? and exactly how to we do this?

Sorry Aileen. I mean on PR. If you click on your user name at the top of the forum, a drop down menu will appear. Click on "Personal Details". You will see a box at says — 'Status Message' — if you write a message in the box and click on 'Save' at the bottom of the page, your message will appear on the main forum page to the right.

On Monday Neuro Immune Diseases Alliance was at 54th and as of late yesterday 59th. Phoenix Rising was at 86th on Monday and late yesterday 129th. Six days remain in the contest. Don't let these organizations, which have a chance of winning, continue to slip in the standings. The contest ends the 19th.

Here is today's update from ME Awareness: Words and Pictures: Chase Community Giving has entered into its second half and your votes are needed more than ever. Here are the current standings of the eight ME/CFS organizations taking part this year (in order of number of current votes):

Neuro-Immune Disease Alliance (NIDA) 1,020 votes

Phoenix Rising An NEID Corporation 534 votes

Rocky Mountains CFS Association Inc 69 votes

Organization for Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Education and Research (OFFER) 62 votes

New Jersey CFS Association 46 votes

Enterovirus Foundation 38 votes

Wisconsin CFS Association 14 votes

HHV-6 Foundation 2 votes

Please consider casting your votes and encouraging others to do so too. Currently, only the top two of our organizations are in line to win but this can change very quickly so more votes are always needed.

Other ME/CFS organizations continue to pull in some votes but still are not on the leaderboard. Rocky Mountain CFS Association is top of this group with 83 votes. To get on the leaderboard, an organization would need at least 668 votes.

Oh, Merry, please don't feel that way. All your help is much appreciated. I think the way the voting is set up, it makes it very difficult to keep us even paced.

You can only vote once, then you must rely on getting everyone else to vote. It's hard to get people who are really busy or ill to sign on and vote. Also, you know that there will be a "final push", which is why I was sort of saving my votes.

Now, I've voted and am trying to get friends and family to vote, stating, it is only on til Sept 19th. Just do it once…. please…

Simon, I truly appreciate you stepping in to help out. I was starting to feel burnt out and disgruntled.

Massive thanks to you, Merry, and everyone else (Dolphin, Nielk, Anne, Aileen and more) on this thread grafting away encouraging votes while people like me think 'I really should think about voting some day'

Massive thanks to you, Merry, and everyone else (Dolphin, Nielk, Anne, Aileen and more) on this thread grafting away encouraging votes while people like me think 'I really should think about voting some day'

Well, I shouldn't give the impression I've done that much. I know a number of people who have been doing considerably more. Much work goes on at the Facebook fundraising group, some of it by people who aren't active on Phoenix Rising (or perhaps I don't recognize them by the names they use here or there). I just wish I knew the secret to get more people involved.

Yes, I agree. Simon, if you could post something like, Chase Contest Stats… and show the graph, it would be marvelous!

Any suggestions on where to post though? Fundraising forum is a bit quiet, Advocacy is busier but not strictly appropriate for this, and I can't post in this Front Page posts forum. Though it would be good to have a general "Chase Contest Countdown" thread, inc the updated graph and any live info too.

Dealing with the Chase App problem
this seems to be a big reason not to vote: people don't want to install an app that can access their data and post updates on their wall. Some suggestions on this:

Tell them removing apps is easy (it really is).
at the same time as asking them to votes : facebook instructions on deleting apps
I hope this won't 'unvote' them, might be wise to ask them to wait til Thursday when the competition is over.

Each vote is probably worth at least $20
Assuming that we won't need more than another 500 votes in the next 3 days to win, each of those votes is effectively worth at least $20 in securing the money ($20 x 500 = $10,000). That's got to be worth a little bit of app hassle.

All sections of the Phoenix Rising website are compiled by a layman. They are not a substitute for a physician and are for informational uses only. Please discuss any treatments in these pages with your physician.